Ainsley the Artist

Ainsley got an easel for Christmas and has been drawing and painting up a storm. I know I'm totally biased, but I think the kid's got talent!

Her first painted flower. I'm thinking about getting it framed.
The colors totally match Nora's nursery!

Telling tom what colors to mix up for her.
Ain and Brooklyn painting in their underwear so they didn't get any on their clothes :)

Isn't that the cutest butterfly??
I was totally impressed when she told me to come look at her butterfly.

I was also impressed at her coloring skills.

She drew this in her first Sunbeam class
(CAN'T believe she's a sunbeam)
Tom picked her up and the teacher gushed about how she was so amazed by Ainsley's picture.
It is a picture of her and her friend Chloe holding hands.

She's been drawing pictures of everyone lately.
This is Grandma Cinda. Ainsley told me "She's smiling cuz she's at my house" :)

Mickey Mouse's Family
Her Daddy :)

She's also been working on her letters, and is getting better at drawing her name. :)

After Christmas

After Christmas Tom went home, but the girls and I headed to Monticello to visit Grandma Cinda. We knew all she wanted for Christmas was time with the kids. :) The great bonus to this was getting to meet sweet new baby Gaige.
Nora was very interested in her cousin.

getting a closer look at this guy

My girls like to make my brother's boys cry..
here's Eleanor and Gaige a month ago

And here's their older siblings in 2007 :)
haha, my girls crack me up.

Proud Older Siblings!

Ainsley loves playing with Gavin
they are SO cute together

My Santa Baby

I look at this picture and can't believe how grown up Ainsley looks.

Just after Christmas Nora started being a real sitter.
She's getting so big too, dang kids need to slow down.

Bathing Beauties

a couple of days after we got there it snowed like CRAZY.
We ended up having to stay an extra day because of the weather.
My mom wasn't sad about that at all. :)

Grandma was happy to keep her girls as long as she could.

Christmas Eve & Morning

We had the cutest nativity Christmas eve.
Ainsley was the angel.
Nora was supposed to be a sheep like Luke, but it happened during her nap.

She loved her angel costume, she didn't want to take it off all evening.

Christmas Jammies!

The Grandkids (minus the babies) all slept together in the grandparents room, and Grandma read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas'

Digging in the Candy Bowl

Santa came!

We were awoken at 5am by the excited kids who had been begging grandma to let them get up since just after 4! Ainsley just couldn't wait to get out there.

checking out her stocking

Nora wasn't quite as excited. 5am is early when you're you're only 6 months old. However, she had woken up when they had come to get us, so I figured she might as well enjoy her presents. :)

The kids and the Loot!

Twenty people's presents make a lot of trash
(that's Tom's youngest brother Alexander in there)

And here's his 2nd youngest, Scott, in his footie jammies.
Ains adores her 'little' uncles :)

Tommy's christmas train, he's so cute. :)

Twas the Week Before Christmas

Oh what a precursor to Christmas we had! :) After leaving Arizona and the Polar Express behind us we headed up to the cabin. The first order of business was a Christmas tree. The guys actually went out behind the cabin and found a tree! It was the cutest little tree. :) The kids had a great time decorating it with Grandma.

I love her little angel!

then we hung up the stockings.. they were cute and fun decorations :)

Yeah, there's a lot of us. I think the count was 20 this year.

Usually at the cabin we sit around, eat food, watch movies.. and those who are inclined to enjoy winter sports partake.. well we definitely did all that, but we also decided to mix it up a bit, and we planned a craft every day. This turned out to be so fun! Great idea girls!

We made gingerbread houses
and cookies

Santa Masksand the grown up girls even made lanterns one night.
They were so fun to make and looked great lit up at night
(mine's the blue on on the far left)

But I think my favorite was the snow globes.
Little hand prints turned into snowmen.
They turned out so cute!

Nora's tiny little snowmen!

It was messy, but it was fun :)

I think Ainsley's favorite part of Christmas was getting to spend all that time with her cousins. She doesn't get to see Ella much, her only girl cousin anywhere near her age. They had a great time talking princesses and even got the boys to dance with them once to princess music.
Cutest.thing.ever.

We got SO much snow, and the kids LOVED it.
Here's their adorable snowman.. who we later had to move up to the porch, because it was getting buried under all the snow!
(Ainsley, Ella, Frosty, Adam, Jake and Evan on the floor, lol)

Ainsley even went to ski school one day!
Tom's determined to make her a well rounded sporty spice
(Ella, Ains, Jake)

(Jake, Ella, Adam Ains)